The news of the pending DL/NW merger has spawned many threads covering very detailed aspects of the transaction, and many forms of speculation. In the interest of keeping the forum organized and the discussions more cohesive, please add your posts in one of the 'official' threads on the subject. You will find them in the forum index with the following titles:

NYT this morning has a nice lengthy article on the deal.....http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/business/15air.html
One paragraph caught my eye:
"At the end of 2007, Delta and Northwest employed a combined 89,000 workers. American Airlines, currently the largest carrier, had 85,500. Delta said the combined airline would employ 75,000 people. That number excludes 6,000 people who work at Delta’s regional airline and Delta said earlier that it would reduce employment by 2,000."

The Delta internal memo states no invol furloughshttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/business/15air.html
and states that employee representation will be handled after the merger is completed using the feds. In the meantime DL non-contract employees will continue to receive their planned raises and contract employees will also receive theirs. DL does make a point in stating the noncontrat wage scales are higher....an obvious hint to the current union groups at NW on how to vote later on...grin!!!!

Overall I would expect that the proposed UA/CO deal will follow very similar lines so as not to pit one agreement between carriers against another....especially if one union is represented at more than one carrier.

On CNBC this morning, Richie and Dougie both said there will be NOT front line employee layoffs due to this merger.
However there is overlapping in management, planning, purchasing and reservations.
safe

I'm just wondering what will DL do with that severance package that was given to the seasoned veterans working for DL???? will they eliminate it? will DL discard and bring back the employees that were given severance payouts? That is a common thought about this. Why would DL go thru so much cutting 2,000 administrative positions in ATL and giving severance payouts to 30,000 employees system-wide, not to mention Comair, SkyWest and ASA. I just recently spoke to someone inside some of these companies that DL is about to start doing layoffs at some of the regional carriers despite of their words of not layoff workers. I just was told about this, If I had the knowledge about it I would gladly give more info, but thats just word of mouth. I will believe it when I see it

I'm curios about pass benefits. Currently NW employees and partner employees receive unlimited coach pass (no fee) and unlimited international coach pass (no fee). I believe DL employees have service charges associated with their pass benefits as well as limits on the number of International trips they may take? Hopefully the NW pass rules become the combined company policy.

Quoting Isitsafenow (Reply 4):On CNBC this morning, Richie and Dougie both said there will be NOT front line employee layoffs due to this merger.
However there is overlapping in management, planning, purchasing and reservations.

I thought I heard on the news last night (WCBS-AM here in NYC) that there would likely be layoffs and that the combined airline is acknowledging this. However, as is always the case when something like this is announced, the number of layoffs and the groups that would be out of work was "not immediately announced". No kidding.

While I think that major mergers like this one are a necessary part of the consolidation this industry needs, it is never a good time when layoffs are announced and lives are forever impacted. Although this is technically a merger and not a buyout, I think everybody knows who the stronger of the two airlines is in this deal (DL). Delta has the younger of the fleets, arguably the stronger route network, and of course, the main hub and headquarters (ATL), so it probably goes without saying that the majority of any cutbacks and trimming will be more to do with NW's crew and network rather than Delta's.

That's the media talking and surmising. You need to get that info from the horse's mouth and that would be
Anderson and Steenland which I did. They were interviewed on CNBC together this morning and the overlapping
I mentioned above was from the two, not the media. I would tend to believe those two instead of a TV or radio
station's two cents worth. safe

It appears they are not counting contract employees. For examples, Kentucky only has 2 NW employees. I'm assuming these are station managers. Does this mean that contract employees are going to be the first to go in this merger in favor of actual airline workers? For my state: http://newglobalairline.com/states/nebraska/ it says 52 DL employees (which has to be the 52 OH employees at OMA) and 18 NW employees (which I can only guess is the 1 NW station manager here in OMA and maybe 17 Mesaba (?) employees at LNK). I'm not sure who staffs LNK but I'm guessing its not contract. ATS does EVERYTHING (above and below wing) in OMA for NW so I'm hoping they'll be kicked out, OH will take over and hire on the ATS people. That'd be nice.

All vendor contracts are protected in the merger. So I doubt they would kick out a vendor and add DL/NW employees at stations already outsourced and incur additional HR expense. That would be great for frontline employees but probably doesn't make much corporate sense since both companies heavily outsource ground handling at smaller stations.

Quote:For examples, Kentucky only has 2 NW employees. I'm assuming these are station managers.

This one's interesting... SDF is vendored out, so you're theory would hold water. But I'm not sure who works NWAirlink in LEX????

Quote:Does this mean that contract employees are going to be the first to go in this merger in favor of actual airline workers?

An internal memo to employees at NWA said that vendor contracts would be honored. I would assume that would apply to ATS and the other 3rd party providers.

Quote:For my state: http://newglobalairline.com/states/nebraska/ it says 52 DL employees (which has to be the 52 OH employees at OMA) and 18 NW employees (which I can only guess is the 1 NW station manager here in OMA and maybe 17 Mesaba (?) employees at LNK). I'm not sure who staffs LNK but I'm guessing its not contract. ATS does EVERYTHING (above and below wing) in OMA for NW so I'm hoping they'll be kicked out, OH will take over and hire on the ATS people. That'd be nice.

Even better would be for NWA to reopen the place and all of OH's people getting onboard.

Quoting DLX737200 (Reply 10):It appears they are not counting contract employees. For examples, Kentucky only has 2 NW employees. I'm assuming these are station managers. Does this mean that contract employees are going to be the first to go in this merger in favor of actual airline workers?

What's far more likely is that contract workers will no longer be contract workers and that the new Delta will end up with a largely non-union workforce.

The very shrewd wording for the issue now is that union representation "will be resolved through the appropriate governmental processes".

IAMAW and AFA have been scrambling to unionize DLMX and FAs respectively in anticipation of this, knowing that their position representing the NW groups they currently do is severely jeopardized by this merger.

p.s.
Long time reader, first time poster. Be nice. If not for this event I probably would have continued to lurk for years to come, but the gravity of it compelled me to drop the dough and start sharing my $0.2

Quoting PhaetonFell (Reply 14):What's far more likely is that contract workers will no longer be contract workers and that the new Delta will end up with a largely non-union workforce.

I believe he was using the term "contract worker" to mean a 3rd party vendor, not someone covered under a collective bargaining agreement. Semantics, I know... I'm just sayin'...

Quote:The very shrewd wording for the issue now is that union representation "will be resolved through the appropriate governmental processes".

IAMAW and AFA have been scrambling to unionize DLMX and FAs respectively in anticipation of this, knowing that their position representing the NW groups they currently do is severely jeopardized by this merger.

The IAM is *not* attempting to organize the maintenance ranks at DL. MX at NWA is rep'd. by AMFA.

The IAM *is* actively trying to organize the ramp and customer service employees of DL.

Quoting Isitsafenow (Reply 4):On CNBC this morning, Richie and Dougie both said there will be NOT front line employee layoffs due to this merger.
However there is overlapping in management, planning, purchasing and reservations.

liars. of course theere will be layoffs. You tell me that at an out station like IAD, they need ALL the NW and DL staff to handle a few flights.....no way....not to mention what will happen when CVG and MEM are closed.

I have to agree on what you posted above but listening to the two CEO's this morning, the buzz phrase was 'our employees'. To me, it would seem like an out to make some changes at the "rented out' stations like LAN or TOL.
I'm not saying it will happen but leaves a crack in the door.
safe

Here in YYCNW ticket/sales/gates are done by ATS. This change-over happened recently. However DL (Skywest) still has their own staff.

Now, with the merger do you think Delta will just add more staff to handle the MSP flights operated by the former NW?? Or does the fact that they are Skywest employees and not truely Delta employees matter? Odd scenario...

Quoting Isitsafenow (Reply 9):That's the media talking and surmising. You need to get that info from the horse's mouth and that would be
Anderson and Steenland which I did. They were interviewed on CNBC together this morning and the overlapping
I mentioned above was from the two, not the media. I would tend to believe those two instead of a TV or radio
station's two cents worth. safe

I'm not vouching for the source of the news I heard (radio in this case) but I'd be very surprised that no layoffs had occurred two years from now if this merger goes through. I know there will be a slightly reduced workforce through attrition and other means, but layoffs are the nasty side effect of large corporate mergers, especially when there is a large overlap such as the case is here. You don't need two sets of corporate headquarters, double the number of hubs and focus cities and twice the size fleet (OK - a little less once the DC9s are gone). Layoffs are, in my opinion, inevitable. Ask the former TWA crew - let's hope this merger goes better than that one did. I'm sorry, but if you actually believe what you hear from "the horse's mouth", I think you are putting a lot of faith into potentially false hopes.

Quoting EXAAUADL (Reply 17):liars. of course theere will be layoffs. You tell me that at an out station like IAD, they need ALL the NW and DL staff to handle a few flights.....no way....not to mention what will happen when CVG and MEM are closed.

Quoting Jblake1 (Reply 6):I'm curios about pass benefits. Currently NW employees and partner employees receive unlimited coach pass (no fee) and unlimited international coach pass (no fee). I believe DL employees have service charges associated with their pass benefits as well as limits on the number of International trips they may take? Hopefully the NW pass rules become the combined company policy.

Each DL employee pays a $50 travel activation fee each year on their employement anniversary date. There are no DL services charges for travel beyond that including B/C or F/C. The only charges as with any airline would be international taxes assessed for international travel. You and eligble family members are given 18ow/9rt free international segments each year, there is a fee if you use more than the allotted number. Domestic partners also are included and DL adds imputed income to your salary for riate U.S. government taxes.

25 WorldTraveler
: This is a great day for DL and NW; as I have repeatedly said, this is a merger of addition, not subtraction. Neither airline would have been able to d

26 Mayor
: All we pay (DL employees and retirees) is the $50 yearly fee and on international, any fees or taxes. Domestic is unlimited with the possibility of f

27 Slider
: You believe that? I think *everything* is fair game, quite frankly. Where else are they going to find these alleged "synergies" they're yakking about

28 MaverickM11
: Of course they do...DL pilots came out way ahead while screwing NW. NW however, does not: http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/a...hy-northwest-pilots-

29 VictorKilo
: It's important to remember that "protected" means that DL and NW can't just summarily drop a contract with a vendor just because of the merger, but i

30 Bobnwa
: Burnsie, this ended quite a while ago. Nope, AMFA is still there.